Top 10: Songs with "Eco-Friendly Lyrics"

10 Songs With an Eco-Friendly Message [For Earth Day]

We have browsed through “all of Spotify” to find songs that promote an environmentally friendly message. Probably not the best usage of time, but we actually managed to find ten songs that you can listen to on Earth Day.

Top 10: Songs with  "Eco-Friendly Lyrics"

Table of Contents

Overview: List of all “eco-friendly songs” in a table

I will really recommend to scroll down below the table to take a better look at the lyrics. However, some people just want an overview of the “greenest” songs out there.

That’s why I made this table:

ArtistTitleEnvironmental main topicYoutube Link
Michael JacksonEarth SongTake care of our planetLink
Miley CyrusWake Up AmericaAmerican environmental politicsLink
Talking HeadNothing but flowersEnergy consumptionLink
Greenpeace The Greenpeace SongHow to save planet earthLink
Will.I.Am SOS - Mother NatureUrgency to stop global warmingLink
Neil Young & The Crazy Horse Be The RainPollutionLink
The Beach Boys Don't go near the waterWater pollutionLink
Everything and everything NASA is on your sideEnvironmental scienceLink
Marvin Gaye Mercy Mercy MeClimate change and pollutionLink
Harry Kindergarten Music Going GreenAll the small things we can do in our everyday life to reduce our environmental footprint.Link

Scroll down to see more of the history behind the songs as well as the parts where I highlighted some of the lyrics. As always: feel free to comment below if you feel that I’ve missed out on some songs – and I might very well add them to the list. 🙂

1. Michael Jackson – “Earth Song”.

The title says it all. “The King of Pop” actually received a lot of criticism for this song as people claimed that he was taking a role as Messias/Jesus. Well, let`s not get into that discussion…but it’s an awesome song – and you should really pay close attention to the lyrics.

Eco-friendly lyrics:

“Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we’ve shed before?
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, this weeping shore?”

2. Miley Cyrus – “Wake up, America”

Most people will probably think of Disney and Hollywood when they hear the name Miley Cyrus. And fair enough: she is probably not the typical eco-friendly celebrity that promotes everything that is green. However, her song “Wake up, America” is written as a clear message to American politicians that keep destroying the planet.

Eco-friendly lyrics:

“Global warming, going green
I don’t know what all this means”

3. Talking Heads – “Nothing but flowers”

“What if all people die and nature takes over?”. Quite an interesting scenario. And that is exactly what this song is about – to highlight how big of an impact we make on the environment, and why the world would be better without humans.

Eco-friendly lyrics:

“From the age of the dinosaurs, cars have run on gasoline
Where? Where have they gone?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers”

4. Greenpeace – “The Greenpeace Song”

Yep, you read that right. There is actually a song about Greenpeace – this huge, quite controversial organization that tend to do “everything” to save the planet. Semi-cringe, but still worth a mention in this article. The song has a clear message: we need to stand together to save the world.

Catchy lyrics:

“Forget that you are lonely, we are together now”

5. Will.I.Am – “SOS – Mother Nature”

Will.I.Am have produced a quite catchy song about the environment. He urges us to make drastic changes in the way we pollute the world. A rap/hip hop song with a Green message? Didn’t know it existed. Fantastic.

Relevant, environmentally friendly lyrics:

“You see it’s situations happening with our planet
Cause, 50 years ago we took it for granted
We should have took advantage, and reversed the damage
Instead of just pumping and selling and slanging the gas”

6. Neil Young & The Crazy Horse – “Be the rain”

This song actually touches upon almost all of the elements that pollute our planet. Extreme consumer behavior, oil companies pumping up oil without thinking about the consequences…and the politicians that don’t want nor dare to do anything about it. Quite a powerful and well-written song.

PS! The song is quite long….9 minutes. Wow. Guess that`s what you need to summarize everything that goes wrong in this world.

And just look at these lyrics:

“Save the planet for another day,
attention shoppers, buy with a conscience and save”

7. The Beach Boys – “Don’t go near the water”

This 2 minutes 48 seconds masterpiece is not exactly the most famous song by The Beach Boys. However, it is damn catchy. I am sorry for the sound quality in the Youtube clip below – it is simply the best we could find online.

Also, this was a song produced in 1972…imagine what they would say about the water pollution today.

Eco-friendly lyrics:

Oceans, rivers, lakes and streams
Have all been touched by man
The poison floating out to sea
Now threatens life on land

8. Everything and everything – “NASA is on your side”

NASA is one of the organizations that work hard to make people understand how bad the current climate change situation is. Just because of that, we wanted to give them a place on this list.

Lyrics:

“It’s happening, the sky is shattering and they’re gonna make a Death Star, out of you, but NASA is on your side”

9. Marvin Gaye – “Mercy Mercy Me” (The Ecology)

Good, old Marvin Gaye. We don’t need further introduction of the guy nor the song. Just listen – and enjoy.

The whole song is more or less filled with a green message, but these specific phrases are powerful:

“Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh mercy, mercy me”

10. Harry Kindergarten Music – “Going Green”

We found this song by accident when we did research for this article. If you ever want to educate your kid about things in their daily life that could make the world a better place, please show them this video. Gold.

Favorite lyrics:

“Be careful how long you take a shower, you don’t have to stand there for 70 hours.”

Which musicians are actively doing something good for the environment?

«Do as I say, don`t do as I do» is quite a common phrase to describe how celebrities deal with climate change. Many of them use their green image to get their streaming numbers up or sell more tickets to their concerts. However, a few of them actually do something good for the environment: and I want to use this paragraph to point them out.

1. Pink.

– Promoting vegan food. Pink actually bought her daughter a vegan cake for her 1st birthday.

– Heavily connected with various campaigns from PETA, and has spoken several times about animal cruelty in the media.

2. Maroon 5.

– Bought a tour bus that runs on biodiesel.

– Financed more than 60 meet-ups for environmental organizations in various cities in the USA.

– Got several prices in The Environmental Media Awards in 2006 for their efforts.

3. John Legend.

– Hosted a tour back in 2009 where a lot of the money would be re-invested in eco-friendly activities. In fact, the main goal was to offset all the carbon footprint of the whole concert tour by dripping money into wind farms. Damn, that`s cool…

– Launched a campaign called “Show Me”, which provides tools to improve the agriculture and clean water in Tanzania. John Legend has found a way to combine fighting poverty and climate change at the same time….what a guy!

Do you know any other celebrities that fight for a greener planet? Let us know in the comment section below!

Want to teach kids how to become more eco-friendly? Read this article.

6 thoughts on “10 Songs With an Eco-Friendly Message [For Earth Day]”

  1. Avatar

    To be frank, I don’t find it very charming when artists are taking a political stand. Especially not when they make songs that are 100 % driven by their political stand. I used to like PINK simply because I think she has produced some really catchy songs.

    However, when I understood how much of a radical leftist she was and how the messages in her songs were driven by that, I wasn’t a fan anymore.

    Keep music and political stuff separated. I don’t care that it’s important to take care of the environment. This isn’t the right platform to use for such nonsense

    1. Avatar

      To be honest Maria, it can sometimes be off-putting when the two are combined but by doing this people can be made more aware on the topic that they are sining about

  2. Avatar

    Haha, I typed into Google “list of environmentally friendly songs” … and some random dude had made a website with an article about this. The internet is bizarre sometimes. 😉

    Cheers

    1. Avatar

      Haha, the Internet is indeed bizarre.

      On the other hand, this also means that I got too much time on my hands! 🙂

      Best,

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